Verification of dynamic and segmental IMRT delivery by dynamic log file analysis

Abstract

A program has been developed to evaluate the delivered fluence of step‐and‐shoot segmental and sliding window dynamic multileaf collimator (MLC) fields. To automate these checks, a number of tools have been developed using data available from the dynamic log files that can be created each time a dynamic delivery occurs. Experiments were performed with a Varian 2100EX with a 120 leaf MLC equipped with dynamic capabilities. A dynamic leaf sequence is delivered and measured with film or an amorphous silicon imager. After delivery, the dynamic log file is written by the accelerator control system. The file reports the expected and actual position for each leaf and the dose fraction every 0.055 seconds. Leaf trajectories are calculated from this data and expected and actual fluence images are created from the difference of opposing leaf trajectories. These images can be compared with the expected delivery, measurements, and calculations of fluence. Tools have been developed to investigate other aspects of the delivery, such as specific leaf errors, beam hold‐off flags sent by the control system to the MLC, and gap widths. This program is part of a semi‐automated quality assurance (QA) system for pretreatment fluence verification and daily treatment verification of dynamic multileaf collimation (DMLC) delivery.

PACS number(s): 87.53.–j, 87.52.–g